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ERP Manager Roles in SaaS and On-Premise Deployments

Changing Role of the ERP Manager

In a traditional ERP deployment all ERP related tasks are performed in house. In this case the ERP Manager is responsible for a team of employees that can manage servers, update software, configure the application, oversee data backups, and other system related tasks.

All of these tasks will take a considerable amount of time and money. The organization must consider the cost of employing and training this team to oversee the ERP system that they are going to be implementing versus outsourcing this to a company that specializes in configuring and maintaining ERP systems. In many cases companies split responsibilities by keeping some in-house and outsourcing others.

Software as a Service (SaaS) frees the organization from the responsibility of maintaining servers and performing most IT related tasks. The responsibilities that fall under an ERP Manager in a SaaS environment include managing internet access and helping users understand how to use the system properly. This challenges the ERP Manager to become more involved in understanding the business and less involved with routine information technology (IT) tasks. The ERP manager will need to be capable of carrying out tasks across several different departments that an ERP system can carry out. This will ensure that the manager is able to take appropriate action if something goes wrong with the system.

Don”t Underestimate the ERP Manager”s Role

All operations within the company must be monitored and the ERP Manager must ensure that all potential problems within all departments are dealt with in a timely fashion. If a mistake is entered into the ERP system, it will spread throughout the company since an ERP system brings together all the different departments within an organization and it will be the ERP Managers responsibility to track down the source of this mistake and to casino online australia put it right.

Some Tasks Remain the Same

An ERP manager managing a traditional, in house ERP system will be required to report to the companies’ investors and must therefore possess a professional attitude with good communication skills in order to instill confidence in the people who the manager will be reporting back to. Similarly a SaaS ERP Manger will be required to report to the company.

Finally, like all managers, an ERP Manager must take steps to improve the morale of all the staff that the manager is responsible for namely, all the people that will be maintaining the ERP system. The ERP manager would need to ensure that all staff are assigned tasks that are fair and should receive useful advice when they have professional, work related problems. An ERP Manager with poor people skills will affect the attitude of the staff; this will result in them not working to their full potential and ultimately making them incapable of bringing out the full benefits of the ERP system.

Conclusion

Software as a service is a positive development for ERP Managers. SaaS technology creates IT efficiencies that allow ERP Managers to spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time interacting with business people and becomming involved with core business processes. Tasks such as maintaining servers, doing data backups, and updating software can be outsourced to highly specialized cloud providers while investigation of new technology, advanced system configuration, and training can be kept in house.

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About the Author:
Rashed Khan has a Msc in Software Engineering and regularly guest blogs on business and technology related topics. Rashed is currently blogging on behalf of ERP Systems experts Epicor.